Worshippers from several churches joined representatives of the Spanish Town Ministers Fraternal in prayer at the Spanish Town Prison Oval on Wednesday. -
JUNIOR DOWIE/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
THE HUNDREDS, perhaps thousands of people who gathered in Spanish Town on Wednesday to pray for divine intervention in solving that community's deep criminal and social problems would be mindful, we are sure, of the biblical injunction that faith without works is dead.
So, having raised their voices in supplication and having shown their deep concerns and compassion for their compatriots, the time is ripe for practical action that will break the back of the social, economic and crime problems.
Now is the time for collaborative community effort that will see the believers moving out from under their expansive tents into the streets and lanes to help with the kinds of practical social intervention that will make life for the people better. Undoubtedly, many of the unemployed young people in the area do not care to be engaged in productive employment - extortion being a far easier enterprise.
But there are others who, if given the opportunity, can and will turn their attention away from a lifestyle of crime. They need to be identified and encouraged to pursue a more wholesome lifestyle than the ones to which they have been attracted.
At the same time, we note that the security forces have not demonstrated much success to date in managing the small geographical areas from which the prime troublemakers from rival gangs are said to originate. They need information that can lead them to where the guns are.
The residents of the community who are sick and tired of seeing their relatives and business leaders quivering in fear because of the gunmen must take responsibility for themselves by co-operating with the security forces in flushing out the criminals in their midst. This calls for uncommon courage, but such is the stuff of the faith about which they sang and prayed on Wednesday.
The success of this week's venture will not be measured in how many people were mobilised to attend the 'pilgrimage', but in what happens afterwards. They need to be reminded that the work to which they have committed themselves by their prayers and their attendance has only just begun. The prayers must be backed up with strong support for the police and community action.
The Government must also move to implement social programmes, such as those started in other inner-city communities in the Corporate Area, but which have floundered for lack of sustained support. Spanish Town's success depends on sustained, committed action at all levels.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
